Keeping trading stats and why it’s a game changer
When I started trading, the only stat I kept was my P&L balance and everything was judged on that number. When it went down I started questioning everything, my stock selection, market conditions, the indicators I used, the timeframe I used and that put me in a constant spiral of doubt and style drift. It was impossible to gain any form of consistency.
This all changed when I started keeping more stats. I first started on an excel spreadsheet but that became very time consuming for the number of trades I placed it each week. I cowered the web and came across Tradezella, a purpose built cloud based program that syncs automatically with my IBKR accounts. Keeping my stats becam automated and I could spend more time analyzing than actually entering the data, saving me boat loads of time.
Having the ability to analyze my trades over time and giving me a holistic view of my performance is the edge I needed to start trending toward consistency. It gave me the feedback I needed to know where to make changes, and the changes I made was not indicators and timeframes. It pinpointed to specific areas I could work on and refine, hone my strategies and become more profitable.
The biggest revelation for me was realizing that being “right” is not the key to success in trading. In the past I became so worked up when being stopped out and wrong in my thesis that it caused so much anxiety for future trades. But now I realized being “right” does not matter, it’s all about your strategy and your process! Sticking to your process is what matters the math will do the rest. When looking at my win rate I saw I’m winning 30% or less of my trades but I’m still profitable WOW! That showed me my risk management strategy is working and there are aother areas I can work on to become even better. I am not nearly where I need to be to trade at the level I want to trade, but keeping trading stats and having a thorough review process has put me on the consistency path.
Here are the stats that I analize on a monthly basis:
Net Realized P&L – This is the % profit or loss I made for the period
# of trades – the number of trades I took that period
Win % - the number of trades won as a percentage of the total trades placed
Avg win/loss – This is a ratio of the average gain per trade compared to the average loss per trade. For example if my average gain per trade was 25% and my average loss per trade 5%, my average win loss ratio was 5
Avg Gain – Average gain per trade as a percentage
Avg Loss – Average loss per trade as a percentage
Profit factor – total profits divided by total losses. A profit factor higher than 1 means my strategy is profitable
Max Drawdown – the percentage my equity curve is down from the peak
Avg hold time (days) – Winners – average length holding the winners. Not holding winners long enough have cost me a lot of potential profit in the future and making sure this number is high helps me stay in the running for longer
Avg hold time (days) – Losers – cutting losers faster is critical in managing risk. It’s helped me overcome the psychological barrier of trading on hope
Avg hold time (days) - Scratches
Zella Score – this is a proprietary rating from tradezella that measures your trades in terms of win%, profit factor, avg win/loss, recovery factor, max drawdown and consistency. The higher the number means the better you traded overall, ito of those metrics
Looking at these numbers consistently has become my feedback to tell me how I need to throttle. The better I’m doing the more risk I can take, but as soon as these numbers are going down, I know it’s time to slow down and reassess. For me, the most important thing is not maximizing profit but minimizing losses. I want to make sure I stay in the game for longer.
Head over to X and let me know how keeping trading stats has helped you become a better trader.
If you are interested in looking at tradezella, please use my referral link https://refer.tradezella.com/wynand-v
